thinkbroadband

Hyperoptic reacts to new UK average broadband speed
Wednesday 12 March 2014 13:40:50 by
Andrew Ferguson

Hyperoptic who provide Gigabit fibre services to flats and
apartments has reacted to the European Broadband Scorecard news.

"Whereas this news may seem encouraging, there are a number of problems with
the findings. Firstly, the overall conclusion that the UK has the best
broadband in Europe is highly questionable as broadband infrastructure in other
European countries, especially in Scandinavia, is far superior to ours at the
moment.

Also, there is a disconnect between these average speeds reports, with Ofcom
now pitting it at 17.8Mbps while Akamai is measuring at just 9.1Mbps. The
reason for this is because of the way the data is collated and measured; median
and average speeds are confused – just because providers report they are
increasing speeds it doesn’t mean that the consumer is able to receive it.

For example, many buildings that we have connected with Hyperoptic’s 1 Gbps
broadband were on less than 5Mbps beforehand. If these poor speeds are still
happening in urban centres then it’s hard to believe reports that the UK has
the best broadband in Europe – there is a long way to go before we can give
ourselves this accolade."

Boris Ivanovic, Chairman and Founder of Hyperoptic, the UK’s leading
provider of FTTH broadband

This is the joy of statistics and it certainly is the case that many
European countries have faster broadband in a good number of areas, but
generally where the UK is winning is the levels of FTTC services which can
cover lots of properties relatively quickly and cheaply and a large cable
footprint.

Ofcom with its insistence on only accepting speed tests from a particularly
testing platform also means that until the EU mandated testing platform is
rolled out fully will they not accept any comparisons hence the lack of speed
data in the scorecard. Even then if each EU country rolls out just 2,000
testing boxes without lots of modelling and weighting it is not clear if the
average that results will fit in with the collective experience. The
mathematical science behind an average may be perfect, but if the testing
strategy does not include regional providers, in addition to the major
providers in each EU country it will just be an average showing what the
incumbent and its big competitor are deploying.

We could rush out some statistics from our own speed tester, but we prefer
to spend the time filtering the results and investigating the various blips
where the median result can be massively lower than the mean. One reason for a
high mean is the presence of operators like Hyperoptic, B4rn or Gigaclear in an
area.

Comments

Posted by
AndrueC over 3 years ago
Poor speeds in the kind of urban areas where hyperoptic is working don't really prove much. I live on the edge of a market town in south northants and I've had over 12Mb/s for five years (courtesy of their previous company) and had my current 70Mb/s for nearly two years.

I could order fibre if I wanted it apparently since Brackley is on the list of FTTPoD exchanges.

Posted by
Dixinormous over 3 years ago
Bored AndrueC? He didn't say every urban area, he said 'many buildings that we have connected'. I would speculate part of the reason Hyperoptic deployed to them was poor speeds and they are quite aware of the competition.

He also said 'still happening' which is again a perfectly fair comment. His points are sound. He is, of course, going to portray his company in the most positive possible light.

Posted by
Dixinormous over 3 years ago
Happy to show you this estate on the edge of the UK's 3rd city where, until last December, the vast majority of the estate received 0.3 - 1.5Mb..... but that would really prove much.